Last visited

About stevesey

Profile Information

Looking around for a newer focus (clutch going @ 210K on Mk1 TDDI). Lots of DPF horror stories around - so wondering when things got better. Mk3s seem to have the cDPF - did later Mk2.5s? Wondering how I tell.
Currently looking at a couple of Mk3s with circa 88k on clock (so hopefully not just used around town!).
Cheers
Steve

Just started her up again - dash lit up like a Christmas tree and got ----- in the odometer. Re-started the same - drove 100 yards and all back to normal - another U0001 stored (MIL stayed on until I cleared it this time). Then all was OK. N.B. While the error was present the fault code reader couldn't read anything from/find the ECU.

Just been out to look at my daughters car - she phoned to say it was showing several dash lights and juddering. She'd tried killing the engine and re-starting but problem persisted. However when I got there (10mins later) we started it and all was good - plugged a code reading in and just got a single U0001 (CAN Bus) stored code. We drove home and she's borrowed SWMBO's car for work tomorrow. Anyone one any experience of intermittent U0001s? Could it just be a one off? Car was used earlier in the day - with no issues (although she was away most of last week so it was stood for while then). Not really sure where to go from here (will try it again in a couple of hours and again in the morning of course). Any suggestions?

Alas no joy so far - dropped radiator and checked front sensor connections, and the wiring through to the control unit with a meter, all looks good. Popped around to the friendly local garage but they were to busy to read codes today (backlog from the short week). Have booked it in for MOT first thing Wed and will get codes then.

Hi all Having trouble with the airbag light flashing code 42 (04 plate TDDI estate). This is supposed to be LH Crash Sensor - so I checked the wiring the other day and it tested fine so I ordered an ebay sensor and replaced the passenger crash sensor - but no change. In researching I noticed that code 42 is the front sensor on Mondeos of the same era, but foci references point to the LH sensor (there were some mixed posts where focus owners were suggesting 42 was the front one). Needed to drop the radiator to get to the front one, don't have time to do that and check the front sensor connection/wiring until Saturday coming, so went with the side one first (ordered before going away for the weekend, came today, fitted tonight). Can anyone confirm that 42 is definitely the LH side sensor? Or the front sensor? Any other suggestions? It looks like I'm going to have to pop to the local garage to get the proper trouble code read. MOT expiry 18 days away so need to get sorted fairly quickly (but preferably without a visit to a stealer!) Steve

Ford Spec (with the ford logo on) 5w30 Magnatec Full Synth 4L £19.99 at present. Not ususlly a fan of Magnatec (triumph of marketing over substance) but as it's the fully synthentic Ford spec stuff and I need an oil change soon I picked up 8L. Steve

Got the car shortly before christmas - when crawling in traffic there is a very noticeable delay between taking your foot of the accelerator pedal and the car starting to slow (sometimes it's even trying to accelerate). Worst right down at 1000rpm. Often you can hear the change in engine note 2-3 seconds after moving your foot. Haven't tried/tested much yet. I did try to see the difference between droping the clutch when it's pulling liek this and just pulling it out of gear without touching the clutch. If you just pull it out of gear the revs spike from 1000rpm to over 1500rpm them die back to idle - dropping the cluch produces only a little spike. Leads me to conclude that the ECU is actively injecting and trying to maintain speed (but when it sees the clutch swicth signla it goes to idle) - rather than unburt fuel (or oil) in the manifold causing the pull. Not sure where to go from here - not that annoying (I have adapted a little I expect) - but at times it does feel a little unsafe to have the car actively pulling. Any ideas? Cheers Steve P.S. No faults reported/logged.

How much fuel did you put in when you filled up? Assuming you brimmed it the best you could, subtract the amount you put in from the tank capacity and you've got yourself an estimate of how much fuel you've got left. If it's plenty you know you can push it a little further if you want to. In my '04 TDDI if I fill up when the light comes on I can only get 43 litres max in it's 55 litre tank - so I should be able to do over 100 miles with the light on (haven't pushed it anywhere near that yet thought - being careful as it's a diesel). In previous petrol cars I've never run out but have taken it to the point where once in a while I've really brimmed it after pushing it and got more in than the quoted tank capacity.

All I've just fitted a leather steering wheel to my '04 LX to replace the worn plastic thing that was there before. :) :D The replacement wheel was from a '99 car came with an airbag in "small badge" sytle - which I prefer the look of compared to the "large badge" of the plastic wheel. I was thinking of using the '99 airbag, but was put off by the warning stickers saying don't use in a different car (assume that means "make" really) and the fact that the "denonator" part looks different (the wires enter differently). So have played safe and put the original bag back on for now. So - can I just swap them? Or are they incompatible. Other then just leaving it as it is the alternative would be to carefully unclip the cover from the bag and swap these over (may see how easy that is one the old one). Cheers Steve

Questions is - with the factory head unit where do you connect the sub to? There's no sub out is there? On the basis that freeing the existing speakers of dealing with the bass should improve sound quality - I've been pondering how to get around this. Option a) is just to connect the sub the rear speakers with a suitable resitor divider and inductor (to make a variable low pass filter) then set the bass setting to flat on the HU and use the sub to boost the bass. Option B) is similar but with a 22uF capacitor is line with the existing speakers to cut the bass on them and turn the sub up more to make the sub to all the bass work. This should work better as it will free up the main speakers from all the bass, not just part of it.

Really it took you 16 years to work that out ;-) Have you not been in any other cars in that time? To me the difference in quality is clear after 5 min's of being in a ford. I brought my 04 tddi becuase I wanted a pre-common rail diesel estate with no DMF that was cheap to run and repair - and it seems to tick all those boxes, but I'd never describe it as a nice to drive or a nice place to be (but if all goes well I'll be quids in at my £25K annual mileage, if it doesn't go well the max I loose is £2.5K - an equvalent w203 C-class merc would have been twice that, decent enginnering and, a better attempt at, customer service costs). Your experince reminds of a renault 19 TD pool car we had a while back (remember there are cars worse than fords), turbo lag was horrendous - several times the turbo would kick-in as you reached for the 1st-> 2nd change. As a result you'd get thrown back in your seat at the same time as the engine shifted on it's mounts and moved the gear lever away from you, totally missed the lever more than once, when getting used to it. I'll get my coat...